Last week a friend I met through teaching sent me a short essay about her time on an inpatient psychiatric ward, and I was struck by how familiar it was. And surprised by a longing so deep for entering that sacred space and sharing that muddy time with people so unabashedly human that I could see myself reflected purely in a way that scared me at first, but later instilled a humility in me that has become a central essence of my navigation of the world.

At the beginning of June I moved from the apartment I loved so much, a place that had been perfect when I left my marriage, but my family had certainly outgrown since, to a house that is very nice. I didn’t plan on moving in the middle of the pandemic, but the decision was made for me, and I am, for the most part, very glad to be here. For more than a month now, I have been organizing my books across the three floors, unpacking boxes, deciding where to put my wine glasses, hang my art, store my many shoes. There are so many things I love about this house, and so many things I miss about that apartment. Chief among the things I miss: the curtainless windows through which I would watch the sky lighten while I drank my first cup of coffee under the blankets. These mornings, I drink my coffee on the deck before the July heat reaches full oppression, and read an essay or maybe just a few pages from a book. Sometimes I see a deer, or the scraggly looking fox that lopes along through my backyard and my neighbors’ yards. I don’t quite feel like myself here yet, but I have been through enough changes to know that my ‘self’ is under construction, and that a slightly new self will emerge in this new setting, bringing with it the lessons of my past selves.

This morning, reading a conversation between the poets Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich, I read some lines so stunning, I had to get up from my chair. I put a mask in my pocket and laced my sneakers and walked the new route that I walk now, from this new place. The lines, Audre Lorde: “I know teaching is a survival technique. It is for me and I think it is in general; the only way real learning happens. Because I myself was learning something I needed to continue living. And I was examining it and teaching it at the same time I was learning it. I was teaching it to myself aloud.”

So I no longer drink my coffee in bed. And I no longer wake to the lightening sky. But now I wake and I read and I watch for the fox, and I teach my new self to myself. Aloud. With you. Here’s a poem I searched for so urgently today, and I trust that perhaps you’ll need it too.

Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining into the World

Jane Hirshfield – 1953-

If the gods bring to you
a strange and frightening creature,
accept the gift
as if it were one you had chosen.

Say the accustomed prayers,
oil the hooves well,
caress the small ears with praise.

Have the new halter of woven silver
embedded with jewels.
Spare no expense, pay what is asked,
when a gift arrives from the sea.

Treat it as you yourself
would be treated,
brought speechless and naked
into the court of a king.

And when the request finally comes,
do not hesitate even an instant—

Stroke the white throat,
the heavy, trembling dewlaps
you’ve come to believe were yours,
and plunge in the knife.

Not once
did you enter the pasture
without pause,
without yourself trembling.
That you came to love it, that was the gift.

Let the envious gods take back what they can.

—1994